I’ve always liked looking at the images in National Geographic. They are always so beautiful or so gut wrenching that I fell in love with the magazine during my college years. I also couldn’t live without going to Borders every Sunday and picking up the New York Times and Time to read as well. I was extremely happy when I found out that my family had subscribed to National Geographic recently, and had seen that our first issue arrived yesterday. In the issue there was an interesting article about bionics—something that I never really thought about until last year.

While I have never had to wear an hearing aid, or had to have a fake limb, or a retinal implant to help aid my sight, I count myself lucky knowing that many people have experienced such things, or potentially have been through devastating accidents that cause them to wear these “bionics”. I am fascinated how such technologies improve throughout the years.

The first time “bionics” were really brought to my attention, besides athletes with artificial limbs, was during last year’s R&D 100 awards. Two technologies that really appealed to me were the Artificial Retina and the Compas Computerized Prosthesis Alignment System. Both inventions stuck out for me because, first, they improved the livelihood of people with certain disorders or injuries, and also, second, because they are advancing a collaboration between biotech and electronics. R&D is, by its nature, a series of collaborations that lead to inventions.

Not only did the artificial retina make a splash at our awards show last year, winning both an R&D 100 Award and an Editor’s Choice award, as artifical retinas in general made impacts outside of the 100 arena in the year 2009, as well.

And, while the R&D 100 entry form have just been made available, I hope that this years entries are as inspiring and innovative as the last.